<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>every lesson forms a new scar by river_soul</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23112823">every lesson forms a new scar</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_soul/pseuds/river_soul'>river_soul</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dracula (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, dracula invades her memories on the ship, finds the experience that made her interested in the supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:56:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>600</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23112823</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_soul/pseuds/river_soul</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The skin of her neck gives easily under his fangs, filling his mouth with the warm, acidic taste of her blood as he pulls her under. In the space between dreams and the waking world, her mind is open to him, laid bare for his perusal. It almost seems unsporting but with all her memories as neatly organized and delineated as Agatha herself, Dracula finds he cannot help himself. It doesn’t take him long to find her oldest memory, hazy with time and the uncertainty of youth, and bring it forth.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dracula/Agatha Van Helsing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>every lesson forms a new scar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For seren-pen.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The skin of her neck gives easily under his fangs, filling his mouth with the warm, acidic taste of her blood as he pulls her under. In the space between dreams and the waking world, her mind is open to him, laid bare for his perusal. It almost seems unsporting but with all her memories as neatly organized and delineated as Agatha herself, Dracula finds he cannot help himself. It doesn’t take him long to find her oldest memory, hazy with time and the uncertainty of youth, and bring it forth.</p><p>–</p><p>The face that stares back at him from the water’s edge is that of a child on the cusp of adulthood. Her features are soft and smooth like lady Ruthaven, but her auburn hair is a vibrant, angry thing that falls in waves against her pale face. It unsettles him to see her like this - so young and vulnerable. Logically he knows Agatha was a child once, but it’s hard not to think of her like the goddess Athena, born fully formed and ready for battle.</p><p>In the memory she glances up at the night sky, dark and muted to her human eyes despite the full moon. She is waiting for something, and the anticipation makes her skin tingle, and her heart beat wildly against her chest. The excitement and mortality of youth that fills her body is a queer thing, unfamiliar to Dracula after all this time.</p><p>They don’t have to wait long before a woman appears upstream. She is older than Agatha, but not by much. Her face, illuminated by the moon, is pale and drawn. Her gown is dark and shiny with blood. She lays the bundle in her arms gently on the ground beside the river and carefully unwraps the cloth to reveal a child, unnaturally still. The babe is small, newly born, but its skin is blue.</p><p>Agatha knows the child is dead, and Dracula feels her fear and confusion as the woman draws a small blade from her apron with trembling hands. She slices a neat line across her palm and presses her bloody hand to the collection of herbs and straw bound in the unmistakable effigy of a man. The words that follow are too soft for Agatha’s human ears to catch, but with her head bowed in benediction, it seems like a prayer. After a long moment, she lowers the blood soaked bundle into the water and lets the current carry it away.</p><p>Minutes pass, terrible and silent before the wail of child pierces the night. The woman on the riverbank sobs as she clutches the child to her chest and the memory dissolves around them like bubbles in the sea. Stories from Agatha’s youth swirl before him. Tales from her grandmother about the time before Christ came to save the world when women would come to the river goddess for help, desperate and willing to pay the steep price.</p><p>—</p><p>When Dracula draws back, the world floods in around them and below him Agatha’s eyes flutter open.</p><p>“It was real,” she breathes, expression awed. Dracula knows she doubted this memory, wondered if it was all a dream made from her grandmother’s stories and childish fantasy.</p><p>“It was real,” Dracula tells her as he leans close and breathes in the scent of her. Death lingers on her skin, and he knows she will not last much longer. It is why, he tells himself later, that he ghosts his lips across hers, tasting the salt and blood of her skin and why she yields to his mouth, his last sweet kiss, so easily.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>